Trump Wins Social Media Delegates, While Sanders and Clinton Split the Social Media Vote

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - March 31, 2016) - Technology and data company Engagement Labs, creator of eValue Analytics™ score, today released rankings of the top performing U.S. Presidential candidates on Facebook and Twitter, for the month of March 2016.

"The U.S. Presidential race changed significantly following Super Tuesday, which was reflected in the candidates' performances and follower growth on social media," stated Bryan Segal, CEO at Engagement Labs. "The Democratic Party saw Hillary Clinton win multiple states against contender Bernie Sanders, while Republican candidate Donald Trump dominated numerous primaries which helped to eliminate candidates Marco Rubio and Ben Carson from the race. The March primaries have forced candidates to turn to social media to engage the American public and garner voter support for upcoming electoral events."

Republican Party

On Facebook, the Republican Party saw Trump take a small lead ahead of Ted Cruz, whose Facebook performance spiked in March in correspondence with his emergence as the runner-up for the GOP Party. All Republican candidates scored extremely well with respect to Engagement and Impact, but John Kasich was the most responsive to his followers and fans. However, Trump maintained the largest follower growth on the channel with just more than 1,182,000 new followers in March.

Trump also remained the leading GOP candidate on Twitter with much higher Engagement than the other candidates, along with the highest Impact score and the largest follower growth with more than 775,000 followers during the month of March. Trump leveraged the platform by live-tweeting electoral events and voiceing his opinions on various political issues. Cruz followed closely behind with the highest Responsiveness score.

"One thing that has remained consistent throughout the election is Trump's lack of Responsiveness," said Segal. "Cruz has the opportunity to use this to his advantage and increase his response strategies to communicate with voters and drive up his eValue score. From our research, we found voters resonate more with a candidate who is responsive on social media, as effective response strategies can humanize their campaign and develop a deeper connection with the audience."

Democratic Party

Leading on Twitter for the Democratic party, Sanders' growing national recognition continued to reflect online scores. On Twitter, Sanders boasted higher Engagement than Clinton, as well as drastically higher retweets, favorites and mentions per 1,000 fans. Sanders utilized the channel to encourage followers to vote at the primaries, while also thanking voters following his successes along the campaign trail. Sanders voiced his opinions on hot topics such as income inequality, terrorism and racism, generating thousands of likes and retweets.

While Clinton ranked higher than Sanders on Facebook for overall eValue score, her fans were not as engaged as Sanders' fans. Sanders generated the highest Engagement and most likes and shares per 1,000 fans. Sanders' social media content proved to be much more effective as indicated by the fact that he posted less frequently than Clinton, yet still defeated her in the aforementioned categories. In addition, Sanders gained more Facebook followers in March, adding more than 644,500 new followers while Clinton gained just under 432,500 new followers. Both candidates boast highly active user bases, making Facebook an ideal communication platform to interact with voters and apply excellent response strategies.

About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs offers intelligent data, analytics and insights for marketers and organizations to track, measure and benchmark the conversations happening around their brand or industry, both online and offline. These conversations are proven to drive critical business outcomes, including sales, while Engagement Labs' tools provide the data and actionable insight to help guide business decisions and power marketing effectiveness.

eValue™ Analytics is the global benchmarking tool for social media scoring. eValue's proprietary data technology offers real-time analysis to measure a brand's social media performance. TalkTrack®, from the Keller Fay Group, an Engagement Labs company, is the only data system to measures the totality of word of mouth -- both online and offline. Engagement Labs maintains offices in Toronto, New Brunswick NJ, Montreal, and London.

To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.kellerfay.com.

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